"7 Stanzas related to Life and Art: A Poem" by Vikram Grewal

If it’s only flesh and only bone

It’s only rock and only stone

For what lies within 

beneath the skin

Are futile dormant veins alone.

But that blood inside

Blue blood red tide

Even on black days

Flowing both ways

White lies pour outside. 

Exist dear body exist

With a clenched fist

And a banana smile

Lifting each day a pile

Of life and hazy mist.

Hard jumbled jungles grow 

Faster than the flow

Of blood in my binds

And ideas of minds

And brows of dawn open slow.

Glass mingles with skies

And faint-hearted sighs  

Mere structures no soul

Empty bellies cajole

Tall twinkles blind tiny eyes.

 

It’s rock and stone

Dead yet overgrown

But with art beside 

That restores pride

To a higher sense unknown. 

My gratitude to art

For filling spaces from start

For blood in stone

And soul in bone

That paint each waning heart.